The future of Iran’s weakened regime, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will not be very bright, according to an Iranian expert, who claimed the regime’s outlook is stuck in a distant past.
Former State Department analyst Joshua Yaphe told Iran International that the Islamic regime’s lack of any meaningful retaliation during the Israel-Iran war exposed how vulnerable the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Khamenei was. The Islamic Republic’s carefully-built security apparatus failed to perform, Yaphe said, adding that “it was hard to see how Iran regains legitimacy.”
Yaphe, who worked as a Middle East analyst for the State Department for 15 years, added: “These are the people who crafted the narratives of the ‘resistance economy’ and other doctrines supporting Khamenei’s agenda,” he added. “That generation is retiring, dying off, or leaving leadership roles, with no coherent transition plan for what comes next.”
He said the government in Iran has chosen to die on a particular hill. “And they’re going to die there slowly, in their sleep,” he said. “It’s going to be a very slow, mundane transition, the outcome is likely gradual change rather than abrupt upheaval,” he said, how even the most apparently reactionary institution, like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could theoretically play a role in a transition. "In the event of a change in power, there’s no future for the Guards as they exist today,” he said. “Internally, the IRGC could pursue a coup or maintain clerical oversight to preserve influence—they’ll have to weigh costs and benefits.”
He mentioned how Islamist movements are declining, highlighting the Muslim Brotherhood and weakened Iranian proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
He said the major turning point was Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign and the 2020 US assassination of senior IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani. “The Soleimani strike disproved fears of escalation, direct measures disrupted Iran’s comfort with covert operations dating back to its 1982 interventions in Lebanon," he said.
“Iran prefers operating in the shadows,” Yaphe added. “Israel and the US responded forcefully, degrading proxies - probably the most effective approach.”
He said Tehran still doesn’t understand that the West would act. “Tehran, still trapped in 1979-era thinking, doesn’t grasp the shift toward pragmatic power dynamics. They don’t seem to understand that the West will act. In the next three to five years, something significant will happen in Iran,” Yaphe told Iran International. “Either way, it won’t remain the Islamic Republic we know today.”
